


shake this world off my shoulders

by constellationsofsentences



Series: all these pictures of you [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bonding, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, screaming: ALL FRIENDSHIP IS ROMANTIC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellationsofsentences/pseuds/constellationsofsentences
Summary: Her converse are hanging over the lip of the tub, and she had been halfway through a rant about MILFs, or something, that Steve was a little too out of it to follow.“I really love you," he says.Robin laughs. “Dork. I hope you’re not trying to romance me again.”
Relationships: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington
Series: all these pictures of you [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570447
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	shake this world off my shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> title from dancing in the dark by bruce springsteen
> 
> note: pls bear in mind that i am neither american nor born in the 80s so if my slang is wrong.... sorry i guess

So, here’s how it happens. You’re sitting in your bedroom, or your kitchen, or your bathroom, and you’re smoking, and you’re laughing. The smoke that curls around you is heavy with happiness, with memories of the past and promises for the future. And suddenly, inexplicably, you realise you’re in love.

Steve blinks. The air around him thickens. Robin, in the bathtub, says, “What?”

Her converse are hanging over the lip of the tub, and she had been halfway through a rant about MILFs, or something, that Steve was a little too out of it to follow.

“I just,” he says, “I really love you.”

Robin laughs. “Dork. I hope you’re not trying to romance me again.”

Affronted, he scoffs. “Are you kidding? Nah. I just really love you.”

She peers at him over the lip of the tub, down to where he’s lying with his feet resting on the toilet lid. Steve blinks up at her, grins, a little embarrassed. The bathroom tiles are too cold, suddenly, pulling him out of the comfortable dazedness of the early morning.

Then she smiles, says: “I love you too,” and then, again, “dork.”

The lights are warm and yellow. They’re artificial, but they feel like the sun. Winter is stretching on in front of them, then Spring, then Summer. Then Robin will be gone, off to study language in some fancy college (she doubts it, but Steve knows). Then Steve will be alone again.

“It’s like, I just wish we were the only people in the world, you know?” she asks. “Then I wouldn’t have to deal with anyone’s bullshit.”

“Except mine,” he jokes.

“Yeah. But your bullshit is mostly just funny.”

“Hey,” he protests, but there’s no heat behind it.

She’s shifted, now, so she’s kneeling up in the bathtub with her elbows resting on the edge. As she peers down at him, she obscures the light a little so a fuzzy halo of yellow surrounds her. “Are you kidding? Steve, doofus, you’re in love with your ex’s new boyfriend. Who you used to bully.”

And, ok, point taken. He says, “Yeah, but—Tammy Thompson!”

It’s a weak comeback, and they both know it. “You say this every time, Steve, but that doesn’t change the fact that your love life is the biggest mess I have ever seen. _Ever._ ” She reaches down to pat his forehead consolingly. “You know, for what it’s worth, at least you have relationships to have drama over. My life is just… boring.”

He sits up, Robin rocking back to rest on her feet. “That is _such_ a lie. _Who_ cracked a secret Russian code last summer?”

“That’s not what I mean, though.”

Steve clambers, gracefully, to sit squashed next to her. The feeling of her head on his shoulder is grounding. The future, he knows, is unsure. His friendships, his relationships, his life, all dangling precariously in front of him. But Robin is here. In his heart, he knows Robin will always be here. Their experiences have welded them together in a way he doesn’t think anybody has ever been before. Nancy may be gone, and so may Jonathan. But Robin will always be with him, even if the connection is only over the phone, or by post, or just in his thoughts.

As if sensing what he’s thinking, she smiles. “Okay, fair point,” she says, and Steve can barely remember what she’s referring to. “You know I do love you too, right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s just nice to say it.”

She looks at him as though he’s somehow the lamest and the kindest person in the world. Holds his hand in a way that tells him everything’s going to be okay. He smiles. “What about that girl who came into the store today? There was lots of”—he loses the word, makes a vague gesture instead—“there.”

“Sure. If she was gay, which I can’t know.”

And there’s that, too, which makes his heart tighten and his fingers shake. “Fuck the world,” he declares.

“Fuck the girl,” she says, with a small smile. He laughs, and so does she, shaking together with it in the bathtub in his empty house. Her fingers tighten around his hand, and he loves her. He will follow her to the ends of the earth, to outer space if he has to.

“You know,” he says, “Dustin thought we were dating.”

It sends her off again, giggling like a little kid. He follows, rolling his eyes and smiling so hard he thinks his mouth might fall off.

“Of course he did,” she says.

“Yeah. I only found out ‘cause Will told me over the phone. Said he didn’t believe it.”

“Yeah, he gets it. I’m out of your league, Harrington,” Robin says. It’s true. Robin is wonderful and amazing and the best thing to ever happen to him. She’s brilliant and can easily overtake Nancy person for the smartest person he knows, but she’s also intuitive and warm and gives the best advice. She may work in a video store for now, but her future is bright and shiny and inevitable, the same way him being prom king was but far more real.

Steve is just Steve. Steve is some guy who still works in a video store after graduating, whose parents don’t care enough to talk to him beyond the occasional phone call. Steve’s future is not shiny. Steve’s future is just monotonous and dull and forever.

“You’re in your head again,” says Robin. “Thinking about Byers?”

Steve pulls a face at her. Things with Jonathan are too complicated to think about; his strategy recently has mostly just been to not think at all.

Everything is complicated lately. Steve thinks the world would be a whole lot better if he just didn’t think about anything.

“No, seriously, Steve, what’s up?”

He looks at her. Her face is open; there’s an honesty there that he’s never felt with any other person. The rim of the bathtub is pressing against his thighs, but he can barely feel it, with her eyes on him and his soul.

He tells her because there are certain things you can’t not tell your best friend. His mouth opens, and it’s like a dam destroyed, sending all his anxieties spiralling into the air. _I’m a failure, I’ll never amount to anything. I’m—not straight, and I’m scared, and my parents won’t care, won’t notice if I leave, and I’m going to lose you, and I’m terrified. You’re about to go off to some fancy college, and I’ll be here, still, forever. And I'll never be anything._

Robin looks at him. She looks, and she looks, for what feels like forever. The joint lies forgotten by the sink, and through the smoke and the sadness, she _sees_ him. He registers, vaguely, that he’s crying, some distant emotion that she’s mirroring. “Why are you staying?” she asks.

It’s a press of a switch. He realises, suddenly, he doesn’t know.

“You could come with me. There are community colleges that would take you, you know. And do you really want Hawkins to be your forever?”

Steve loves her more than anything in the world. For years, he’s been pegged down, pinned in place by expectations and assumptions and all the rest. He’d assumed Hawkins was the only place that would take you.

“No,” he breathes. “Fuck, no.”

Hawkins has mistreated him. It’s mistreated her, too, leaving them both winded and lost and clinging to one another.

But he’s remembering, dimly, that there is a life beyond it, dangling just in front of his face.

And there it is again, that hope. Robin gives him that hope.

“I love you,” he says, again, elated. It’s true, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> steve is literally the sappiest person ever. stay tuned for more!


End file.
